3.3 Delphi Technique

Consensus reaching methods generally used in health care are Delphi panel, nominal group or consensus conference. They are useful to organize “qualitative judgments and, which is concerned to understand the meanings that people use when making decisions about health care.” (Black, 2006⁸⁸, page 132). They are not as such qualitative methods because they may use quantitative data collection tools (questionnaires, scales), and quantitative element in the analysis (statistics).

All the consensus methods cited here are characterized by the provision of information prior to the discussion, privacy (participants express their opinion in private), opportunity for participants to change their view and explicit and transparent derivation of the group decision, based on (statistical) analysis⁸⁸.